Study on Spatial and Temporal Variability of Rural Household Energy Consumption in Plateau Mountain Areas of Southwest China

Abstract

Rural energy consumption of China is only about 20% to total energy consumption, but the consumer number has accounted for 70% of the population. Rural household energy is closely related to life quality of farmers and regional ecological environment, which concerns building a new socialist countryside, and occupies an important position in the national energy consumption system. Nowadays, the quantity and quality of rural life energy has been greatly improved, but environment pollution caused by burning of residue straw and extensive use of non-renewable fossil fuels is spread. Guiding the rural life energy consumption to a efficient, clean, environment-friendly direction is urgent. Southwest Plateau Mountain is one of the traditional geographical divisions in China, with abundant biomass resources and distinctive regional characteristics. However, few studies has been conducted to research the change of the rural life energy consumption structure in the region. Therefore, the spatial and temporal variation of rural life energy consumption was analyzed through the rural energy data from 1992 to 2017. The results showed that total consumption and per capita consumption of energy in rural life presented a step change characteristic of increasing firstly and then decreasing from 1992 to 2017 (the highest was in 2008). Total consumption and per capita consumption of rural life energy in 2017 increased by 3.64% and 65.13% respectively compared to 1992. Coal, straw, firewood are the main types of rural energy consumption in this area, gas, oil, liquefied petroleum gas, natural gas, coal gas and solar energy consumption ratio have improved to varying degrees with the evolution of the year. The proportion of commercial energy consumption increased from 30.05% in 1992 to 57.60% in 2017, reflecting the energy structure transforming from the traditional patterns to the diversification, utility and commercialization utilization pattern. The regional distribution of energy consumption intensity basically showed the characteristics of north high and south low, energy consumption structure, demonstrating significant regional differences. The largest energy consumption energy in Sichuan was firewood, and it was coal in Yunnan, Chongqing and Guizhou, and electricity in Tibet. Taking the complementary energy consumption mode of commercial energy and non-energy commercial energy according to local conditions, promoting the efficient and clean use of straw, firewood and solar energy will be the inevitable choice for sustainable development of rural energy in mountain plateau areas in Southwest China.